Two Questions Every American Should Ask President Obama

The Administration maintains a website where questions may be asked and comments made to the President and his staff:

whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

I have used this website to ask two questions:

1. In an address to Congress you stated “We have a supply of natural gas that can last America one hundred years, and my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.”  If this energy can be developed “safely”, as you have stated, why is hydrofracking – the process current used on most natural gas wells – exempt from all clean-air and clean-water regulations?
2. In your oath of office, you promised to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”.  Why then are you supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement, which would allow foreign corporations to sue governments directly–for unlimited cash compensation in foreign tribunals—over almost any domestic environmental or other law that the corporation believes is hurting its ability to profit; a pact that thus takes away the local and state governments’ Constitutional right and even your own Constitutional right to protect our environment with appropriate legislation and regulations?

I closed my letter to the President by adding, “The technology for safe, renewable energy is available.  Why are we threatening the health of every citizen in the country with hydrofracking?”

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, whether you voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, or even if you didn’t vote at all, you need to know that the health and well-being of every American is at stake.  Even if you don’t live in an area where natural gas is being extracted through hydrofracking, the resultant environmental damage can hurt water supplies in your area, especially if you live in a large city.

It is my hope that every reader of this blog – even those who are not American citizens – will ask these questions of President Obama.